outgrow

From out- +‎ grow.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌaʊtˈɡɹəʊ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌɑʊtˈɡɹoʊ/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊ

outgrow (third-person singular simple present outgrows, present participle outgrowing, simple past outgrew, past participle outgrown)

1. (transitive, often figurative) To become too big in size or too mature in age or outlook to continue to want, need, use, experience, or accept some object, practice, condition, belief, etc.

   Poorer children often have to wear whatever an older sibling has outgrown.

   I used to have allergies but I outgrew all of them.

   Some people blame God for their troubles, but one must outgrow such notions.

   • 1941 January, “Railway Literature”, in Railway Magazine, page 48:

     […] Most persons are collectors at some periods of their lives. Some outgrow the habit; with others it becomes a mania; and with still others it is a lasting habit intelligently planned as one aspect of a study of a particular subject.

   • 2022, Ling Ma, “G”, in Bliss Montage, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN:

     “I think you've outgrown Bonnie,” he said as he drove. […] “Bonnie and I have known each other forever,” I said simply. “Doesn't mean you have to be friends forever.”

2. (transitive) To grow faster or larger than.

   The best adapted plant varieties tend to outgrow those less adapted.

• grow out of

• outgrowth

• “outgrow”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “outgrow”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• grow out